Corel Painter 2015 in Review

While there are a number
of painting and sketching applications available, Corel's Painter
stands out on top, with its huge assortment of natural media
brushes, plentiful features, and innovative advances. Continuing in
this manner, Corel's natural media painting application boasts some
great new features and enhancements with the release of Painter
2015.

For those that don't know, Corel's Painter is a dedicated
painting application that allows the digital artist to very closely
emulate traditional art. Built into the program is a vast selection
of brushes organized into categories, such as oils, acrylics,
pencils, and watercolor. There are also many different paper types
and textures to choose from to create just the look you want for
your paintings. But, it doesn't end there, as you have the ability
to go beyond the traditional and work in layers, add effects, work
with a large content library of gradients, patterns, weaves, etc.
Plus, you have complete control over every brush feature, and can
even create your own unique brushes, paper textures, and other
content.

The real beauty of Painter is that it can be a great fit for
many different types of artist, like those coming from a
traditional art background, to designers, illustrators, and even
photographers looking to do more with their captures or
portraits.

Painter 2015's Welcome Screen

When you first launch Painter, you get a welcome screen with 3
tabs: 'Inspire,' 'Create,' and 'Share and Learn.' Under the
'Inspire' tab you are greeted with images created by other Painter
artists, which is a nice way to get a little inspiration before you
create. Under the 'Create' tab, you have the option to create a new
piece, or open an existing project. You also have the option to
refresh the Painter interface with a workspace geared to the work
you are doing, such as illustration, or photo art. 'Share and
Learn' offers links to Painter's Facebook page, YouTube channel,
and the wonderful painterartist.com site.

The Painter user community is huge and there is no shortage of
tutorials available online. The first place I would recommend to
look would be the works and tutorials of the newly appointed
2015 Painter Masters, and the Elite Painter Masters.

Particle Brushes

The biggest new feature to Painter 2015 is a whole new brush
category - particle brushes! These are unique and exciting brushes
that bring a new edge to Painter, and can be a great asset. I can
immediately see the usefulness for the concept artist, but everyone
could find something useful, as these brushes are capable of
creating looks of fire, smoke, fur, water, etc. The particle
brushes are unlike any other brush in Painter, and they are very,
very cool.

Particle brush examples

Some of the particle brushes show only on a dark background

There are 3 different types of particle brushes in Painter 2015:
springs, flow, and gravity. These are
built on physics properties and create some really dramatic
results. Learning how the particle brushes work may at first appear
tricky, but Corel did well in providing info on their use, and how
to tailor them to your needs, through detailed information palettes
accessed via 'Window > Info Palettes.'

Jitter Smoothing

The previous Painter X3 version introduced Universal Jitter,
which allowed for randomness in your brush strokes with a jitter
effect. Now, Painter 2015 improved upon that with the introduction
of Jitter Smoothing. This allows for a smoother, more natural look
and flow with your brush strokes.

In this example, you can see brush strokes with jitter, followed by
strokes with applied jitter smoothing below them.

Brush Tracking

While Painter 2015 introduced a couple new features, there were
other areas that were greatly enhanced. Brush Tracking, which
allows you to best calibrate and tailor the pressure of your
strokes is one such feature. Basically, when you open the brush
tracking panel, you draw a stroke in a designated box. You are then
shown a curve indicating your unique style. You can tweak it from
there to create just the right settings you want for for each of
the different brushes you use. And you can now practice your
calibration settings right on the canvas before commiting
changes.

Additional Enhancements

Another big enhancement in Painter 2015 is the very noticeable
increase in speed. While some brushes like the watercolor can still
lag a bit, there is a definite difference over Painter X3. Corel
stated there was up to a 40% increase in most brushes, and the
majority of the brushes I enjoyed working with were, in fact, quite
zippy. And, I should also mention that Painter 2015 is now native
64-bit for the Mac.

Painter also includes some effects that you can apply to
your images, changing tone and texture, for example. In Painter X3
you only had a thumbnail preview, but now in Painter 2015 you get
to see the full image preview of the effects before you apply them,
which is so much nicer.

I highly recommend Corel's Painter 2015. Comparing it to Painter
X3, I think it is a very worthy upgrade, not only for the newly
added particle brush category, but for the noticeable increase in
speed, the new jitter smoothing, and brush tracking
enhancements.

For those who have never given Painter a try, do yourself a
favor and take advantage of the free
trial. There is good reason Painter is the best of its kind out
there. And it is limitless what you can create with the many tools
and features provided in Painter 2015.

Pricing and Availability

Corel Painter 2015 [Full] $399.00 (USD)

Corel Painter 2015 [Upgrade] $199.00 (USD)

Note: Current owners of version 7 through X3 are
eligible to purchase Painter 2015 at the Upgrade
price.

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